Area security lights are usually mounted outdoors in order to project a wide swath of visible light. They are employed at a variety of facilities, such as commercial (shopping malls, stores, sports stadiums, tennis courts), industrial (factories, warehouses, farms), and government or military facilities (airports, military bases). A light is typically mounted to a wall, a pole, or other structure. To achieve the largest area of lighting, the area security light fixture has a horizontally extending, cantilevered arm to hold the light source away from the wall, pole, or other structure. By moving the light source away from the wall, pole, or building, the cantilever arm gives the security light greater light dispersion around a 360° circumference.
Installation of this type of light has been difficult. Typically, the end user has been required to nail or bolt the light to the structure, then run an electrical conduit to the light. Often it has been inconvenient and time consuming to run the conduit to the light. It would be more convenient to mount the light to a standard outlet box. But the cantilevered arm must support bulky and heavy electrical components, such as a ballast, a transformer, a starter, and the like, which are normally needed for metal halide, mercury vapor, high pressure sodium, fluorescent, and sometimes halogen type light sources of security light systems.
What has been needed to this point is a mounting system that allows an end user to conveniently mount a heavy security lighting system to a standard outlet box. It is also desirable at times to provide the end user with a security lighting system that can be conveniently interconnected with the user's choice of a either an outlet box or an electrical conduit. The invention disclosed herein meets these and other needs.